


The Frost King

by Kineil_D_Wicks



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game), Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, It was fun to write, Older Work, also they spell Yugi as Yuugi and that really throws me off, but i like it, crossposted from ffn, monster Yami, started off as wanting to do nice fluffy snow story, we're going deep into lore and worldbuilding folks, went into genocide and other dark topics, will be illustrated
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:41:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27831688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kineil_D_Wicks/pseuds/Kineil_D_Wicks
Summary: The village of Frostmore, bound in ice and snow, is all Yugi and his friend Willow has ever known. But all attempts to leave have met with failure—because if the cold doesn't get you, the predators will. And everyone knows that the way out is guarded by the monstrous Frost King….
Kudos: 1





	1. Frostmore

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and welcome to this chilly Yu-Gi-Oh!/Don't Starve crossover. We hope you dress warmly and enjoy your stay. :)
> 
> Yu-Gi-Oh! © 1996 Kazuki Takahashi  
> Don't Starve © 2013 Klei Entertainment

Yugi listened to the wind howl.

He sat in the communal hall, with the other families of Frostmore, weathering yet another dreary storm. He rocked back and blew into the air; a trail of smoke went, regardless of the burning fire in the huge fireplace. It wasn’t Yugi’s turn in the sphere of warmth; he had to wait to cycle in and get away from the cold stone walls and snow-choked small windows. Meantime, he snuggled tight in his coat and scarf, pulled his googly-eyed hat down tight with his mittened hands, squished between his mom and grandfather beneath three blankets. He could hear Pegasus complain to his wife about his paints freezing.

Yugi eyed Ushio, the nearer of the guards walking around, and debated walking up and asking him about being bumped up the queue. He doubted it—he had asked Ushio before, and he had been turned down. It didn’t matter that it was just him and his mom and his sickly grandfather—they had to wait their turn. He watched Ushio nudge Joey, who started an argument. He could hear it from where he sat: no, he wasn’t going to move—his sister needed to stay by the heat. Ushio said something to him and walked off. Joey said something to his sister and headed for the door.

Yugi knew what that meant: wood duty.

He looked up to see Ushio looking down at him.

“Yugi, wood duty,” Ushio said briefly.

The good news was, this meant his family was bumped up on the list. The bad news was, Yugi had to go out in the bitter cold and get more wood. But the sooner he left, the sooner he’d get back. He crawled out from the blankets and ran over to where Joey was.

Ushio went out with them, to make sure nothing happened. After they got over the bracing cold, he walked a few paces behind Joey and Yugi, shotgun tucked under his arm.

They rounded a corner and stopped. Joey swore under his breath, chattering teeth making him unintelligible.

No wood.

Ushio spotted this, handed them a couple of hatchets. “You know the drill: go chop down another tree.”

They were ready to head to the old spot when Ushio stopped them. “Not there; we’ve got all the trees there.”

They looked in the other direction. They were surrounded by mountains, but the one in particular was frightening and looming, for one specific reason: it was the home of the Frost King.

“I’m not going that way,” Joey said bluntly.

“Don’t be stupid,” Ushio said. “I’m going to do a perimeter check. Don’t go too far in.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Joey muttered as Ushio marched off. He and Yugi trudged up the mountainside.

As they went, Yugi couldn’t help but think of everything he had heard of the Frost King. A monster with spider legs and a bulky, furry body; sharp teeth and antlers; that ran like a deer and struck like a bear; whose breath froze people in their tracks. Yugi didn’t want to run into this thing.

“What if we run into the Frost King?” Yugi asked, fear making him quiet.

“Now _you’re_ being stupid,” Joey snapped, although Yugi could tell he was nervous too.

They stopped by a tallish pine. “This one looks about right; it’s all piney,” Joey said, unshouldering his bow and quiver. “Keep an eye out, will you?”

Yugi did so, hoping he meant for Ushio, or worse, ice wolves. Or maybe for a deer—that would be good for a day or two.

The snowy landscape was quiet, the absence of sound deafening him. Yugi jumped as Joey began hacking away at the tree. Yugi scolded himself for being so jumpy and focused on keeping an eye out for…whatever.

Snow fell thickly. Yugi marveled at the thick, deep sound it made as snow settled on itself. How could something so soft sound so heavy?

Crunch.

Footsteps?

Yugi glanced around quickly. Joey was still absorbed in chopping, more snow falling, shaken from the tree. Yugi didn’t see Ushio—a perimeter check shouldn’t take that long, right?

The footsteps were too quick for Ushio, anyway. Yugi recognized the pacing.

“Joey. _Joey,_ ” Yugi hissed, tapping Joey on the back. Joey paused in his work and looked at him. “I think I hear a deer.”

The effect was instantaneous. Joey dropped the hatchet and snatched up his bow and arrow. He wasn’t the best shot in the world, but he wasn’t the worst—they had a fair chance of it.

They glanced around, Yugi fretfully, Joey behind his arrow. The footsteps were getting louder.

“This thing is starting to scare me,” Joey muttered. Yugi could understand the sentiment. The footsteps sounded like they were coming from all over, and the snow was masking all movement. The deer could bound right in front of them and they’d never—

Yugi spotted it.

It wasn’t a deer.

He had only seen it for a second, but in that second, he could see that the movement, the body structure, the color, was _wrong,_ all wrong for a deer. It was barrel-chested and lanky-legged, pacing appropriate for a mix of wolf-deer-rabbit, frosty blue….

The Frost King. He was here.

“Joey,” Yugi hissed.

“What, Yug’?”

“I think,” Yugi breathed. “I think I saw the Frost King.”

“You’re being silly,” Joey hissed, but his grip tightened; he was looking forward to a shot at the beast threatening them, but he also knew the likelihood of success if he did. His life expectancy would become extremely short.

More crunching. “There,” Yugi pointed. Joey aimed accordingly.

Dark, lumbering….This wasn’t the Frost King. “Wait a minute, Joey.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“I don’t think that’s—Ushio!”

He had never been so glad to see the guard in his life. “What do you mooks think you’re doing?” Ushio growled, spotting the arrow aimed at his chest. “You’re supposed to be chopping wood!”

“I saw the Frost King,” Yugi blurted.

To his credit, Ushio didn’t immediately scoff at the notion. Instead, he was all business, readying his gun and quietly issuing orders.

“Pick up that hatchet Yugi. Joey, keep that bow drawn.”

They did so. “What about the tree?” Yugi asked.

“Forget it.”

They did so. Quickly, they headed back for town. Once there, Ushio led the way to one of the houses.

Yugi paused. “That’s the Johansens’ house.”

“It is,” Ushio said, grabbing a chair and dashing it against the wall. “They haven’t shown up for days—general consensus is they made a break for the Pass.”

The Pass was supposedly the only way down from the mountains. No one who had tried it had ever returned. “Maybe they made it,” Yugi said quietly, disbelieving it even as he said it.

Ushio said nothing about it. “Pick those pieces up—we can burn them for now.”

“What about later?” Joey asked.

“We can hope the Frost King finds something else to entertain himself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted to FFN on 12/1/2014
> 
> So this fic started off as me going "You know I've never written the cast of Yu-Gi-Oh! in a winter-type scene." It was winter of 2013, Frozen was hitting theaters, and we were driving home in a little snow flurry.
> 
> You would expect: something cute and fluffy like Pharaoh's first winter.
> 
> We got: sweeping epoch that features genocide, fratricide, and a few other ways of people being nasty to each other.
> 
> I still love it though--and am working on the sequel for it. In the meantime, enjoy this strange and chilly tale. :D


	2. The Frost King

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2, and we see the Frost King. Who is he? We shall soon find out….
> 
> Yu-Gi-Oh! © 1996 Kazuki Takahashi
> 
> Don't Starve © 2013 Klei Entertainment

Bound bound bound—through the snow-deadened forest. Trees whipped by in blurs. Snow fell deafeningly. The world was crisp and sharp, and he was hypersensitive to it all.

He sensed a hill up ahead, poured on the speed, and made a great leap at the crest, rolling into the bottom with glee. It was good to be him.

He looked up to see a rabbit staring at him, frozen with shock. He greeted it, baring his teeth in a smile.

Instantly the rabbit was down its hole. He shrugged and continued on, dashing through the snow. _Dashing through the snow_. It felt as though a song was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t name it or place it. He disregarded it and barked out a laugh instead, head held high as he ran.

He paused by a rocky outcropping near the mountain face. Snow was beginning to fall more thickly now. It had almost filled in the footprints—

Footprints?

He examined them closely. Not wolf not deer not bear not—these belonged to those strange beings in the wood-and-rock piles. Opinions were varied and strange on the beings, but he himself had a pleasant opinion of them. They were fascinating. They were interesting.

And they were heading for the Pass.

He followed the prints at a leisurely pace. These beings couldn’t move through the snow like he could. He would overtake them soon enough.

And indeed he did, finding them lying in the snow. He looked, poked, prodded…sat back on his haunches. Dead, cold, unmoving.

Three, lying in the snow, facing the Pass. He glanced in the direction they were heading. Nothing but deep, foggy snow, impossible to navigate for anything but him. But it had never held any interest for him. What was out there, that these beings kept killing themselves to try to find?

Small heartbeat. Faint. He looked to the one in the center, smaller than the others. Still alive. Barely.

He gently scooped it up, turned it on its back. Fluttering heart. He closed his eyes and put his head to its chest. He thought of something that it could be, that could let it live….

When he opened his eyes again, he was no longer holding one of the beings. Instead, he had turned it into something that could handle the cold.

Its eyes fluttered open, looked at him. A small fluffy owlet, barely able to fit in one palm.

He smiled at it gently. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” it squeaked breathily.

He clutched it to his chest, as gently as he could. He knew where to take it so it could be taken care of.

He bounded away on two legs, ignoring the cold dead laying in the snow.

He’d come for them later.

The owls were nestled in their hollow, deep asleep, somehow able to tell even in snow-fog that it was day. He felt guilty for waking them, but he knew they’d appreciate what he’d brought them. They had tried to have chicks before, but a cold snap had taken the eggs.

Somehow, he felt guilty for that as well.

The owls blinked open at his insistence. The male reacted first. “Yami!”

Yami—for that was his name—bared his teeth in a grin. They didn’t look nor sound angry or cross with him—rather, they sounded genuinely pleased to see him. “Boreal! Cirrus! How’re you doing?”

“Sleepy,” Cirrus—the female—responded. She yawned and fluffed her snowy feathers. “You can’t wait until dusk, can you?”

“I have something for you.”

Boreal perked at this. “Oh, I hope it’s a vole.”

“No, better.”

“Rabbit.”

Yami lifted up his hand and unfurled his long fingers. Cirrus reacted first, a happy coo undulating from her.

“It’s so, so….Come here, little one,” she stammered, letting Yami deposit it into their nest. She snuggled the owlet into a bundle of down and preened it as Yami explained what happened to Boreal. When he finished, Boreal shook his head sagely.

“I swear, those… _Others_ ,” he said, settling on the owl term for the beings. “Have no sense in their heads. If I had no feathers-no fur, I wouldn’t go _near_ any cold. Foolish creatures.” He turned to look at the owlet, now tucked in with Cirrus. “Will he remember…?”

“I don’t think so,” Yami said. “Maybe.”

Boreal shook his head again, fixed Yami with his yellow eyes. “Thank you,” he said. “We won’t forget this, honest we won’t.”

Yami shrugged, made a few non-committal movements—he didn’t want them to think they were in debt to him. But when he left, he couldn’t help but feel all glowy inside from helping them.

Later, he returned to the cold dead. He took the packs and took the clothes, and anything else of theirs that wasn’t attached—they weren’t going to use them anymore, and no one else he knew had any use for them. He took them back home, then stopped by Svaren’s cave.

Svaren was curled up in a nice warm pocket, feigning sleep. Yami knew better. “Svaren!” he called.

“Hibernating. Go avay.”

“What if you didn’t hibernate on an empty stomach?”

“Not interested if smaller than vwolf.”

“Okay, but my next stop is the wolves. _They’ll_ be interested, I’m sure.”

Svaren lifted his head. “Interested in vwat?”

Svaren had that peculiar way of saying W-words. Yami often found himself imitating that after speaking to him. “Slightly-frozen meat, already peeled.”

Svaren knew what that meant. “Stupid two-legs,” he grumbled, standing. The white bear lumbered out. “Not know not go out in cold.”

“ _You’re_ out in the cold.”

“Have good reason.” Svaren examined him with sleepy bear eyes. “You stupid too. Run round all the time then eat rabbit-food.”

“I eat meat sometimes.” Although he preferred it as anything but raw, for some reason.

“You don’t eat enough. That vwy so thin.”

Yami huffed, but Svaren was already heading down the mountain to the Pass. “Svaren?” he called.

“Da?”

“What am I?”

Svaren turned to look at him. “Vwat?”

“I don’t think I’m a bear or deer or wolf or owl.”

Svaren gave it some thought, then continued down the mountain. “You are Yamir,” he said, using his peculiar way of saying Yami’s name. “You stupid but smart. Is why you’re only one of kind here.”

Yami gave it some thought. Looked up at the gunmetal gray sky.

Suddenly, he didn’t want to be alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I want you all to know that these beginning chapters are like seven years old at the time of this reposting so going through them again is weird for me. XD The owls calling people 'Others' is in reference to the Guardians of Ga'Hoole book series. Good stuff.
> 
> Also, polar bears will happily hunt and eat people. D:


	3. Wolves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now for Chapter 3….I recommend reading _The Age of Fire_ series by E.E. Knight, by the way—the wolves in _Dragon Champion_ are what I base the wolves here on.
> 
> Yu-Gi-Oh! © 1996 Kazuki Takahashi
> 
> Don't Starve © 2013 Klei Entertainment

Silver-Fang and Moon-Back were surveying some pups rolling around in the snow, trying to get them into the den when Yami swung by. They looked up with delight.

“Yami-friend!” Silver-Fang greeted—wolves always greeted those they liked with that term (family was “kin” enemy was “foe”). The pups charged Yami, and he had a good few moments dashing around them till they were dizzy.

“Yami-friend come in?” Moon-Back inquired. “We-pack caught deer today—sleep soundly tonight.”

Yami gave it some thought. “I wouldn’t mind coming in.”

“You talk funny, Yami-friend,” Silver-Fang observed. “You must have been talking to Svaren-bear again.”

Said so because Svaren was neither friend nor foe. “I have.” Yami gave some thought before speaking again. “What would you say I am?”

They were in the den now—the whole pack gave this some thought. “You are Yami-friend-almost-kin,” Tree-Bark announced from the back. The rest readily agreed.

This wasn’t really an answer as far as Yami was concerned. He was beginning to think he was as peculiar as the beings in the valley.

One of the pups was digging greedily into the remains of the deer. “Don’t stuff yourself!” Swift-Foot scolded. “You’ll get fat and lazy.”

“I’ll get swift from eating deer!” the pup countered.

“You get swift from much running,” Swift-Foot countered. “You eat nothing but deer and you’ll sprout antlers like Yami-friend.”

The nearby pups all looked at Yami. “Is this true, Yami-friend?”

Yami gave this some thought; he could see the jest in Swift-Foot’s face. “No,” he said finally. “There’s a very strange beast far in the deep-mountains called a ‘Yamir.’” This said thinking of Svaren. “You can’t reach it unless you can run fast and far without rest, many moons from here. If you eat _that_ , _then_ you’d look like me.”

The pups all _ooo_ ed accordingly.

“See Yami-friend?” Silver-Fang asked. “You answered your own question!”

Moon-Back nipped Silver-Fang as the pups swarmed Yami, each claiming that _they’d_ be the one to track down this fearsome Yamir and become the strongest. Yami squirmed away from them and pounced around as well as the den would allow.

“That’s enough, pups!” Sharp-Tooth, one of the older dams, barked. “You don’t want to work up our guest Yami-friend.”

The pups made disappointed noises, but Yami realized that his antics had made the temperature drop in the den. He had never been bothered by cold, had never really _felt_ it, but in that moment he realized he could make his wolf-friends freeze to death in their sleep. “I should go anyway,” he said, making his goodbyes and ducking out of the den.

Outside, he looked up again. The storm was beginning to clear.

“Yami-friend.” Yami turned to see Moon-Back sitting at the entrance. Yami waited politely. “You made that up for the pups, didn’t you?”

“How did you know?”

“Because ‘Yamir’ is what Svaren-bear calls you.” Moon-Back padded over to him. “What’s wrong? Worry-smell clings to you.”

Yami looked up at the sky again. “I don’t know what I am.”

Moon-Back gave him a gentle lick. “You are Yami-friend-almost-kin, only so because you aren’t wolf.”

Yami sighed. That wasn’t the answer he was looking for.

“You still worry,” Moon-Back observed.

“Not-quite-worry,” Yami corrected.

Moon-Back considered. “Stay,” she requested. “You would not chill the den if you didn’t move too much.”

“No, I’ve got to go.”

And he did.

“Good-hunt, Yami-friend, whatever it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear the chapters get longer—at the time I was looking more at page count than word count, since an article I read said that around three pages is what a person can be expected to read on the bus ride to work/school. And yes, I could put the chapters together, but at this point that'd be 150 chapters that would then need renumbering. X'D


	4. Exploring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4, and a bit more Frost King….
> 
> Yu-Gi-Oh! © 1996 Kazuki Takahashi
> 
> Don't Starve © 2013 Klei Entertainment

Yami didn’t want to go back home just yet. Home was past Svaren’s cave, and he didn’t think Svaren was finished yet.

So instead, he went down to the wood-and-rock piles, to see if he could peek in on the beings.

He needn’t have bothered. They were all in the main pile, he could tell by the smoke coming out of the top. The rest were abandoned now—fair picking.

He poked around until he found one with a door that pushed in without difficulty. He went in, bent nearly double to fit indoors, and looked around.

He found a few odds and ends that interested him. He picked them up and continued, looking for one of those things that the beings stored food in. He found one, figured out how to open it. Nothing. Mildly disappointed, he finished his search and moved on to the next house.

He couldn’t help it—it was a compulsion. He was always ravenously curious—that was his nature. He couldn’t help but pick up every knickknack that caught his fancy, even though they did nothing but collect frost back home. When he saw it, he wanted it, wanted to learn about it.

Unfortunately, everyone he knew had conflicting information on the beings. Svaren said they were stupid. The owls had a similar opinion, but then again, they were mildly disdainful of anyone without wings (Yami was exempt, with his frost-webbed wings). The wolves had a neutral opinion of the beings, saying they were two-leg-wolf-things that had enough sense to hunt and den together. The deer had a negative view of them, saying they were evil things that could kill by looking. The snow-birds said they ate like deer, berries and roots and nuts. Yami had never been able to get an opinion out of the rabbits—but then again, he never had conversations with rabbits. The foxes had no opinion that Yami trusted.

His ears perked. Footsteps crunching.

“The tracks lead this way.”

“It’s in the Van Burgs’ house.”

Stupid. He was light on his feet in the snow but not that light. A sharp eye could track his progress. And here he was, stuck in one of the piles with no way out—

Wait. There was a thing where they burned wood. And if they burned wood, there must be a way for the smoke to get out.

He stuck his head in, extending his senses to see if he could fit. He could, barely. He tested a few ways before he settled on the best way to squish through. He scrambled up, frost forming wherever he touched. He couldn’t tarry—the frost would build and trap him. He popped out the top and looked around quickly.

“There!”

He bounded in the other direction as a horrible resounding _crack_ sounded—that killer look the deer described. He didn’t linger.

Soon, he was deep in the forest, far from where the beings dared go at night. But now they would be on guard for a while.

He gritted his teeth in frustration and headed home. No need to hurry. No one was waiting for him.

Somehow, that made him feel worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Boxing Day! More short chapters, but we'll be getting to some meaty stuff soon.


End file.
